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coalescentNorman Spinrad has some interesting views.
I'm going to backtrack slightly here. A big pack of Asimov's Science Fiction turned up this morning, where 'big' means 'the last four issues'. The reason for this is that my subscription had lapsed without my noticing, something that, when the publisher of the magazine is on a different continent, is easier to do than you might hope. So, when I renewed, I got them to restart from the first issue I'd missed. After all, I couldn't miss a Manfred Macx story, could I?
Asimov's rotates several regular fiction reviewers, all with distinct styles. Spinrad's style is...well, for want of a better phrase, he tries to put things in perspective. He tries to find the place on the speculative shelf where the work he's reviewing fits best. And he often provides some interesting thoughts about the genre in general on the way - it was in a Spinrad column, for example, that I saw the first serious counterarguments to the Singularity. Before that, I'd been under the impression that serious SF fans agreed it was inevitable. God knows why, given that serious SF fans aren't able to agree on anything else under the sun, but there you go.
The Spinrad colum in the October/November Asimov's is about literary movements within SF. I'd link, but it doesn't appear to be online. The gist of it is that he runs through all the well-known examples - Golden Age, New Wave, the rise and continued marketplace dominance of post-Tolkien Fantasy, Cyberpunk - and then asks, "what's next?" Because arguably, there hasn't been anything.
Obviously, the column would peter out somewhat if he didn't then attempt to answer his question. Here's what he comes up with, considering Perdido Street Station (which I still haven't read...), John M Ford's The Last Hot Time, and John Clute's Appleseed.
"Thus, ironically, while fantasy has first infiltrated science fiction and then become commercially dominant over it within the 'SF' genre, [in Perdido Street Station] we have an example, and The Last Hot Time is another, of the tropes and techniques of science fiction infiltrating fantasy, and perhaps in the end coming to dominate it on a literary level."
Fantasy tropes, science fiction technique. Of course, my first thought on reading that was: Ted Chiang. My second thought was, what Spinrad is suggesting isn't exactly new. Third thought: Or is it? Is there more of it floating around than there used to be?
Well...maybe. Just off the top of my head, Ian McDonald's Ares Express and Mary Gentle's Ash come to mind. Pullmans' His Dark Materials has a nifty slide into SF partway through the second book. And perennial OUSFG favourite MMS has been all over the genre-bending thing since his first book.
There's more, but I'm not sure it's enough for a movement. It's an interesting trend, though, and not just because I like reading the stuff; it's interesting because it has the potential to be different.
I'm going to backtrack slightly here. A big pack of Asimov's Science Fiction turned up this morning, where 'big' means 'the last four issues'. The reason for this is that my subscription had lapsed without my noticing, something that, when the publisher of the magazine is on a different continent, is easier to do than you might hope. So, when I renewed, I got them to restart from the first issue I'd missed. After all, I couldn't miss a Manfred Macx story, could I?
Asimov's rotates several regular fiction reviewers, all with distinct styles. Spinrad's style is...well, for want of a better phrase, he tries to put things in perspective. He tries to find the place on the speculative shelf where the work he's reviewing fits best. And he often provides some interesting thoughts about the genre in general on the way - it was in a Spinrad column, for example, that I saw the first serious counterarguments to the Singularity. Before that, I'd been under the impression that serious SF fans agreed it was inevitable. God knows why, given that serious SF fans aren't able to agree on anything else under the sun, but there you go.
The Spinrad colum in the October/November Asimov's is about literary movements within SF. I'd link, but it doesn't appear to be online. The gist of it is that he runs through all the well-known examples - Golden Age, New Wave, the rise and continued marketplace dominance of post-Tolkien Fantasy, Cyberpunk - and then asks, "what's next?" Because arguably, there hasn't been anything.
Obviously, the column would peter out somewhat if he didn't then attempt to answer his question. Here's what he comes up with, considering Perdido Street Station (which I still haven't read...), John M Ford's The Last Hot Time, and John Clute's Appleseed.
"Thus, ironically, while fantasy has first infiltrated science fiction and then become commercially dominant over it within the 'SF' genre, [in Perdido Street Station] we have an example, and The Last Hot Time is another, of the tropes and techniques of science fiction infiltrating fantasy, and perhaps in the end coming to dominate it on a literary level."
Fantasy tropes, science fiction technique. Of course, my first thought on reading that was: Ted Chiang. My second thought was, what Spinrad is suggesting isn't exactly new. Third thought: Or is it? Is there more of it floating around than there used to be?
Well...maybe. Just off the top of my head, Ian McDonald's Ares Express and Mary Gentle's Ash come to mind. Pullmans' His Dark Materials has a nifty slide into SF partway through the second book. And perennial OUSFG favourite MMS has been all over the genre-bending thing since his first book.
There's more, but I'm not sure it's enough for a movement. It's an interesting trend, though, and not just because I like reading the stuff; it's interesting because it has the potential to be different.
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Date: 2002-12-31 02:48 am (UTC)I know what you mean about the Fantasy/SF thing not being new - I've thought a couple of times that that's one of the things I like about MMS. I haven't read Ash - should I? Argg. Somewhere in my head is another book which is a perfect example of this, but I can't think what it is! I'll comment back when it comes to me.
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Date: 2002-12-31 10:35 am (UTC)The science fiction element just felt... wrong, somehow, almost as if it had been shoehorned in. In fact I would say that it's that element of the book that I enjoyed the least. As for the fantasy element - well, to me there wasn't one. And before you argue, bear in mind that fantasy is what I consider to be my favourite genre, and it's certainly the one I read most often.
I also read 'Perdido Street Station' recently enough (i.e. in the summer) to remember my feelings on reading it - which were that it felt like straight science fiction to me. Not fantasy at all.
You'll no doubted be disgusted by what I consider to be the best example of 'fantasy with a bit of science fiction thrown in' - the Pern books of Anne McCaffrey. They *feel* like fantasy novels to me (and I must admit that I've always loved that series and have re-read it many times). Yet there is the science fiction input, e.g. how the dragons came to exist etc.
Again, however, the science bit felt 'wrong' to me. My very favourite books are fantasy novels that are basically *total* fantasy. Maybe it's because I like to read to escape - somehow, if there is a link to Earth (which, let's face it, most science fiction has), it's not enough of an escape for me.
Hope that makes sense... Anyway, thank you for distracting me from morbid thoughts! (New Year's Eve, see - never good...)
Jocelyn
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